1
Each time I buy a new didgeridoo
I like
to wander for a month and find
out
what it can do,
but this time, when the stick had been delivered
by courier, bubble-wrapped
to my doorstep, leaning in the corner
by the daffodils, I left it at home
and rode trains with manuscripts
calligraphic with Edit.
It was winter, north enough I thought,
but as Rain travelled the sky in armadas
of dark ships firing rainbows
across the harbours
and hail stones loudened bus trips
instead of the unlocked hotels
of the homeless I stayed in a mixed dorm,
the oldest man, that I could see,
amongst the assorted colours of traveller,
and womens’ unwashed underwear
rustle-y in plastic shopping bags
beneath the bunk beds—
other men my age have paid
their houses off, their children
left, and left wives, and are
become grandparents, some
of them, of Business flops,
or minor titans of mercantile gusset.
these mornings you will find
me on the end of a
toilet brush
or an industrial Allen
key opening the mouth of
municipal rubbish
bins.
Thank you, men… As an explanation: I stay afloat in full-time work by projecting into the future where I will again exist in a more troubadour fashion, and I’m hoping, expecting…the interest for these two opposing lifestyles will not diminish as I age;
Hear, hear, what ‘poesie’, as David Mitchell would say, that ‘minor titans / of mercantile gusset…’. How many poems can you find the word ‘gusset’ in and used so splendidly! I’ve paid off my guitar at least…
other men my age have paid their houses off as well. can relate to this, Dean.